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War, War, War See other War, War, War Articles Title: Iraq war is hell on the bottom line at the box office Jabbar Magruder is an active duty Army National Guard sergeant who served 11 months in Iraq. He was hoping that stateside Americans would get a glimpse of what the war was like when several dramas featuring the Iraq conflict either in the foreground or the background hit theaters this fall. Few have. Despite A-list casts - including Robert Redford, Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones - and generally good reviews, war-related dramas tanked this fall at the box office, failing to attract a substantial audience during Hollywood's serious film season. And now, with the lighter holiday movie fare blanketing screens beginning this weekend, the cultural window to bring narratives about the war to multiplex patrons is closing. The public apathy Magruder has seen toward the Iraq conflict seems to be carrying over to the movie theater. Part of that theatrical indifference can be attributed to a nationwide flatlining of box-office receipts this fall. Last weekend was the lowest-attended mid-November weekend in 14 years, according to Brandon Gray, publisher of the online box office monitor Box Office Mojo. But to some Iraq veterans, like Magruder, who have tried to raise awareness about the war's perils, the apathy represents a larger disconnect many Americans feel toward the war. Implicit in the Redford, Streep and Tom Cruise film "Lions for Lambs" is a challenge to filmgoers to become impassioned about the war. Few received the challenge; box-office gross for the film dropped 57 percent nationally last weekend, its second in theaters. Its two-week gross was $11.5 million, low for a film that cost a reported $35 million to make. "Lions" earned only slightly more last weekend than "Saw IV," the serial-killer bloodbath, which is in its fourth weekend. "I thought that with the casts (of these films), at least a portion of America would go to see them," said Magruder, a 24-year-old who is taking premed classes at California State University Northridge and is the Los Angeles chapter president of Iraq Veterans Against the War. Like many soldiers, he joined the service out of a sense of duty and, because his family had limited financial means, to pay for college. "America doesn't want to deal with Iraq, period," Magruder said. "There's just apathy. And that's what a lot of veterans, no matter what their position on the war, are finding when they come back home." Some analysts and filmmakers thought the movies might capture the attention of Americans hungry for stories about Iraq at a time when mainstream media coverage of the war is drying up - or to challenge the views of those dissatisfied with news coverage. Polls indicate that at least two-thirds of Americans oppose the war, but only 16 percent of Americans name the Iraq war as a top story when asked what has been covered lately, according to a survey this month by the Pew Research Center for People and the Press. The Pew Center also found that 63 percent of Americans say that stories about "the challenges faced by some U.S. soldiers returning from Iraq" have received too little news coverage. About the same number (61 percent) say that "reports about soldiers' personal experiences have been undercovered." But the films that told soldiers' stories at the multiplex this fall - "In the Valley of Elah," "Lions for Lambs," "Redacted" and even those with a vaguer connection to the war in the Middle East, such as "Rendition" and "The Kingdom" - never found much of an audience. "The Kingdom," starring Oscar-winner Jamie Foxx, was the top earner with $47 million, "which is a low gross for a Hollywood action picture," Gray said. "Rendition," starring Oscar-winner Reese Witherspoon, has taken in $9.7 million, and "In the Valley of Elah," $6.7 million. Not even the conservative kiss of death from Fox News commentator Bill O'Reilly could gin up enough controversy to spark a wider audience for Brian DePalma's "Redacted," which opened last weekend in 15 theaters. Even though he hadn't seen the film, O'Reilly ranted against "Redacted" for weeks after he heard it was based on an incident in which U.S. soldiers rape a 14-year-old Iraqi girl. While advertising for the film played during commercial breaks for his program, O'Reilly said that reaction to the film could harm U.S. service personnel abroad and urged people to stand outside the 15 theaters where "Redacted" opened last weekend and hold up signs that said "Support the troops." Any protester might have felt lonely. The film grossed $26,000 over the weekend, a per-theater ratio low enough for Gray to declare it a flop for DePalma, who won the best director award at the Venice Film Festival this year. When the war-related feature films came out, several analysts noted that some might find an audience because they were not polemics or Bush-bashing films, and thus wouldn't risk alienating conservative filmgoers. Gray, however, said the films might have fared better had they had more of an attitude. Without a strong point of view, "they weren't even able to get a base of supporters out to see them. Plus, artistically, I think they would have fared better. "All of these films were vaguely challenging, just like people's attitudes towards the war," Gray said. "The intellectuals in San Francisco and on college campuses like ambiguity, but a lot of people in the rest of the country don't." To some soldiers who served in Iraq, public indifference to the films has little to do with filmmaking techniques or cultural controversies. It's just another sign that the folks back home don't really care to hear much about their experience. "I feel that it's a general sign of the apathy out there towards Iraq," said Joe Wheeler, a San Bruno resident who spent a year in Iraq as a surgical assistant in the Army. The 31-year-old limousine driver is under treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder and has felt his condition stabilizing. "It is happening somewhere else to somebody else, and the last thing they want to do is go see a movie about it. "Personally, it affected me to see the lack of interest in these films," said Wheeler, who has seen "Elah" and "Lions for Lambs." "Maybe there are some civilians who don't know how real it is," said Army Sgt. Selena Coppa, who served time with intelligence units in the Middle East. She teared up when she saw "In the Valley of Elah," especially for its portrayal of the difficulties returning vets can face. The 24-year-old New Yorker is "a nitpicker about stuff in movies. I look for something that isn't right. But that film got it right. Maybe if you haven't been through it, you wouldn't get it." "The war doesn't end for us when we come home," said Geoff Millard, the 26-year-old Washington, D.C., chapter president of Iraq Veterans Against the War. The Army National Guard veteran was honorably discharged this year. He joined the service as a 17-year-old who grew up in a poor neighborhood in Buffalo, N.Y. Most hauntingly realistic to him was the soldier in "In the Valley of Elah" who was struggling after his return home. When that character was overseas, Millard said, he couldn't wait to come home. Now that he was back, he was so uncomfortable that all he could think about was returning. "If people saw (these films), then they wouldn't have an excuse not to do anything about it anymore." Joe Bobrow, a San Francisco clinical psychologist who has treated returning Iraq vets and their families, said he "would be surprised if veterans went to see these films. It'd be very stimulating and activating in a potentially upsetting way. The war is still alive for them. "And the one thing that I've heard from all sorts of veterans is that they've come back and they feel that the country has no clue what they went through, and they don't care what they went through," Bobrow said. When he points out that many people do care - even those who oppose the war - the soldiers tell him that "we've come and we've sacrificed, but we don't see that others have sacrificed at home. Everything seems like it's just going along as usual." Perhaps civilian Americans aren't emotionally ready to see the war in the multiplex either, said Bobrow, who founded the Coming Home Project in San Francisco for returning vets and their families. Seminal Vietnam films like "Coming Home" and "Apocalypse Now" didn't come out until years after the United States withdrew from Southeast Asia. "Even with the speed of communication now, when parents can send e-mail and talk on the cell phone with their children on the front lines, I don't know if you can speed up the process of the deeper healing work that needs to be done where the country and the culture need to come to grips with what we've gone through," said Bobrow, who helped to promote "In the Valley of Elah" by appearing at screenings with groups of Iraq vets. "That takes time."
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#6. To: kiki (#0)
How can anyone expect most Americans to care about a war that doesn't effect their lives in the least? I embrace apathy wholeheartedly.
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